MovieChat Forums > Chinatown (1974) Discussion > This is a real plot hole

This is a real plot hole

posted 8 years ago by roreyking
14 replies | jump to latest

After being served, Gittes goes to Hollis’s office and is told he’d been gone since lunch. Gittes then goes to Mulwray’s house, where Evelyn tells him Hollis will be back in the evening. We see the house is full of servants: the butler, the maid, the gardener, the man washing the car. He then goes to the reservoir where Hollis’s body has been discovered.

[spoiler]We find later that Hollis was drowned in the pond that afternoon. How was Hollis killed, and his body removed from the grounds, unobserved, when the estate was full of servants? Before someone says, “They must’ve bribed the servants,” we know at that very least that Khan, the ubiquitous butler/major domo, was loyal to Evelyn: he was hiding Katherine for her. It would’ve been impossible to keep a killing and body removal from him.

More salient than that: Towne explicitlyt accounted for every other incident in the story. But this aspect is completely unexplained. I’m tempted to write him and ask about it!

[–] wdement 8 years ago

They say he was killed at night and was dumped in the reservoir in the morning, most of the staff wouldn't be up and walking around in the middle of the night and those that were could've been taken care of.

[–] roreyking 8 years ago

Can you share who said that, in which scene? It would contradict the sequence of events noted above. Perhaps there's an inconsistency in the script.

[–] Joeyjag_97 8 years ago

Evelyn even says that she never makes the maids work at night so therefore there wouldn't have been anyone around at the time of Mulwray's death.

"A man chooses. A slave obeys."

[–] roreyking 8 years ago

Read my post again. According to the sequence of events in the film, Hollis was killed during the day.

[–] BourbonKing (5778) 5 years ago

Boreyking thinks there's a plothole because Hollis' secretary lied to Jake about him not being in due to being out to lunch which is an obvious LIE because she's well aware of the recent scandal about Hollis and his "secret lover" which btw came about because of Jake's P.I. work which gave him credit in the tabloids. Because Borey believes the secretary he also believes that he's still alive but in reality Hollis was never in the office and probably called in the day before to tell his staff that he wasn't taking any or making any public appearances or comments. This subtle nuance of L.A. politics flew over Borey's head so it's understandable that he holds on to this failed grudge for so long.

In reality, Hollis either metup with Noah at his home or was followed there by Claude and killed/drowned in the Japanese garden tide pool in the backyard which explains the salt water in his lungs by the autopsy as revealed later in the film.

[–] roreyking (607) 5 years ago

This is still unresolved. Thoughts?

[–] BourbonKing (5778) 5 years ago

You contend that Hollis was drowned at the estate in the afternoon, but as a previous poster pointed it out it was most likely done at night when the servants went home.

Furthermore, when Jake returns to the estate and meets up with Noah and Claude there aren't any servants so it stands to reason that they don't live on the quarters, including Khan.

[–] roreyking (607) 5 years ago

Watch the movie again Einstein. This all happened on the same day: is Secretary says Hollis has been gone since lunch. Gittes goes to the Mulwray home. Evelyn tells him Hollis will be home by 6:30pm. Gittes goes to the reservoir and discovers Hollis is dead. He could only have been murdered that afternoon, not at night.

[–] BourbonKing (5778) 5 years ago

The secretary says...so you think she's telling Gittes the truth or just telling him off since she knows Gittes is the man behind the illicit tabloid story? I say the latter, since she's a secretary and probably reads that kind of stuff on a daily basis.

There you have it. Enjoy

[–] roreyking (607) 5 years ago

LOL! You are such a clown! There's nothing in the script to support that. We know Hollis isn't there. So how is his secretary's letting Gittes know Hollis is at lunch "telling him off"?

I'm sure you'll feel compelled to come back with more of your bullshit. Fire away. You're being ignored.

[–] DuesExBiological (99) 5 years ago

He actually has a good point.

Jake was riding high after his "big bust" on Hollis Mulwray who was being vilified by the general public for not allowing the building of a new damn and then this story breaks out that he's a cheating scoundrel. The entire DWP of L.A. is under hot water and I'm sure Hollis had his secretary refuse any press or interlopers from bothering HQ.

[–] DuesExBiological (99) 5 years ago

Watch the scene at Mulwray's office again. It's clearly stated that the entire office is on edge over the scandal of him being spotted with a younger girl, which at this time is unknown to Jake and to the audience of actually being Evelyn's incestuous daughter.

I've seen this movie countless times and your plothole claim never ran across my mind because it's easy to conclude that Hollis stopped going to the office as soon as the story broke, which would have been at least a day before or more. So it's more than probable that Hollis's secretary and deputy Yalburton were just covering for him in his absence.

When Jake goes to visit Evelyn to find Hollis she quickly tells him that he's at the office. You don't notice it before upon your first viewing, but after subsequent viewings you can see that Evelyn and Hollis were scrambling to relocated Catherine but Evelyn was unaware that Noah and his henchman Claude were already on Hollis' heels and killed him in the tidepool the night before. That's why Jake saw those glasses in the tidepool because we later find out that they belong to Noah who was there when Claude drowned Hollis.

[–] roreyking (607) 5 years ago

LOL! You’re projecting an explanation onto the script by inventing motivations that aren’t substantiated. If Hollis hadn’t shown up that day, his secretary would’ve simply said, “He’s not in today” – not that he’d been gone since lunch.

[–] DuesExBiological (99) 5 years ago

No, it's more like you're projecting this idea of a plothole because you think there is one. Unless there is footage of Hollis being at his office before Jake arrives then you have a point, otherwise you want this to be a plothole. The secretary as well as Yalburton are covering for Hollis as the scandal of him being associated with a younger girl is politically embarrassing and the fact that Jake Gittes PI firm was the one that exposed Hollis gives them impetus to blow him off

Good luck getting Bob Towne on the phone to verify this LOL